Disgusting, digusting, disgusting. He was a priest in the parish of one of the top advisers to the Pope on the pedophilia scandal, and guess what? The Vatican was warned about the man nearly 20 years ago and did nothing. And, according to the Italian press, it appears they're saying he's HIV+.
Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. "I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues," he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.
Seppia's defense lawyers are expected to argue that those conversations — monitored since Oct. 20, 2010 — were just words, sex games that were played by adults. It was just a game even when he claimed to have "kissed on the mouth" a 15-year-old altar boy, according to the defense.Yes, what grown man hasn't joked about making out with 15 year old boys? Then again, we are talking about the Vatican.
And now it appears he may be HIV+. (And I'm waiting for the "why does it matter?" brigade. It matters because I believe you have an obligation to divulge your status, safe sex or not. Especially when raping children.) (H/t Atrios.)
And via David Badash we learn that the Vatican knew about the guy 20 years ago:
Piercarlo Casassa, a retired priest, in a report by The Daily Telegraph, said of Seppia, “I told the Church about him in 1994 but was ignored. I told them he was not the right person to have around youngsters.”The Vatican long ago become little more than a criminal conspiracy to aid and abet pedophilia. How anyone let's these people even vaguely weigh in on gay rights legislation, without arriving with 6 foot billboards screaming "PEDOPHILE!" is beyond me. No Catholic religious leader should ever be permitted to lobby for "family values" education, anywhere, ever again without being greeted by the most embarrassing protests of his life. Yet our groups do nothing to take these people down. No politician would invite a Catholic leader to a hearing, a press conference, or anywhere else if they knew those kind of protests were going to greet them. Hell, I'd arrive with someone who was abused by a Catholic priest as a child. Shame these perverts back into their shell for the next 1,000 years.
